The Significance of Co-operative Maritime Diplomacy to Curb Transnational Maritime Crimes in Sri Lanka

Abstract

In this paper, the researcher attempts to research contemporary requirement of Sri Lanka to build better international relationship with countries through co-operative maritime diplomacy, in order to curb the transnational crimes to the Island. This area of study mainly concentrates on management of international relations through the maritime domain. The cooperative maritime diplomacy is a sub concept of maritime diplomacy and it is used for maritime assets and resources to manage international relations with co-operation. The Island features of Sri Lanka and geo strategic location in the Indian Ocean Region, give greater prospects to exploit maritime opportunities. On the other hand, this country faces many non-traditional security issues. Therefore, Sri Lanka has to manage the maritime environment around the country, building better understanding with regional and extra regional countries to counter this menace which greatly affects the national security. My research problem highlighted the timely requirement of interstate cooperation to curb transnational maritime crimes in Sri Lanka. This puzzling issue highlights the significance of understanding the concept of cooperative maritime diplomacy and its use. The objective of this paper is to draw attention to understand the methods that could be used under co-operative maritime diplomacy to curb the transnational maritime threat to the country. The researcher has selected qualitative research method with collecting data from secondary sources and this includes scholarly articles, books, case studies, journals, etc. Further, the researcher forwards data with his personnel observations. A theoretical review is discussed with the theory of ‘Strategy as Practice’.